


i know one thing sure is true

by tremontaine



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crack, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-29 01:43:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3877597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tremontaine/pseuds/tremontaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve gets shot. Neither Bucky nor Natasha deal as well as they would like you to think. (But particularly Natasha.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	i know one thing sure is true

**Author's Note:**

> Minor spoilers for AoU.

 

“Take him to Hawai’i,” Pepper said, trying to joke. “To recover. It’ll be peaceful.”

Natasha rested her aching forehead against the glass that separated her from Steve’s room, watching the slow rise and fall of his bandaged chest, the fall of the dimmed lights across his face.

“OK,” she said dully, aching and cold. “OK.” Then, after a moment or two of silence, "Is there a state in the union you don't have a house in?"

"Minnesota," said Pepper. "Too much snow."

Natasha snorted. Footsteps; people talking; someone in scrubs ran past them; James, and the smell of terrible coffee.

“Let me,” said Pepper, and then he pulled Natasha one-handed into his embrace. Natasha slumped against his chest and didn’t speak. She’d spent twenty minutes in the hospital toilets trying to get Novokov’s blood off her hands and it still wasn’t quite gone, crusted round her fingernails. The jacket had been ruined. James held out a cup of coffee; she took it, automatic, and sipped at the hot sugary brew. Pepper handed James his own cup back.

“Doctor Barnes says he’ll heal up just fine,” she said quietly.

“I don’t know why he didn’t take the head shot,” said Natasha.

“He didn’t care about killing Steve,” James said. His voice was rough with yelling and scratchy with exhaustion, accent creeping in at the edges in a way that, usually, she found incredibly sexy. Right now it was a reminder of everything they had almost lost. “He wanted us to suffer.”

“We suffered enough the first time,” Natasha said bitterly.

He kissed the top of her head, wordless. Then he said, “Jamie says my face is gonna scar.”

Natasha snorted into her paper cup. The graze along his cheekbone from the bullet that had killed Novokov was shallow but wide, and if it did scar he’d look rakish and Byronic. And he knew it. “I’m gonna make sure it does.” Never had she ever been so afraid of missing her shot before…

“Maria says she needs to know what you did with the body,” Pepper said.

“Chopped it up,” said Natasha. “Don’t need him magically coming back to life.”

“He wouldn't have,” James said. “He was about a week away from a cryoseizure that would’ve had him twitching on the floor with his brains dribbling out of his nose as it was.”

Pepper didn’t flinch, but she did say, “OK,” and move away to make some calls. Natasha sipped her coffee and looked at Steve and soaked up James’ warmth at her back: hospital disinfectant, leather, sweat and blood, antiseptic cream and coffee.

“Pepper says we should take him to Hawai’i.”

Silence. “Weather’d be nice.” He sighed. “It’s so stupid, but I keep thinkin’, thank god he didn’t find the house. The house is still ours.”

“Not stupid at all.” Suddenly she added, “Is Jamie OK?”

He sighed again. “She threw me out of the room so she could cry for a bit.”

Natasha roused herself. “I’ll go –“

“No, leave her. She didn’t want either of us.”

“All right.” Natasha was doubtful, but she left it. Jamie had just spent half the afternoon performing a major surgery on a man she had been taught to think of as an uncle for most of her life, and that was before he’d come back from the dead and become part of her family again; of course she needed a minute.

Steve had nearly died. Steve had nearly died. Now it was all over this fact was crowding in at the edges of Natasha’s mind every time she was quiet. Steve had nearly died. She could see his face, the astonished look he’d worn when the bullet had knocked him to his knees outside the Tower. She squeezed her eyes shut. Steve was in there, in there right in front of them, and he was still breathing.

“How have you lived like this since 1922?” she demanded, and James made a noise like she’d slapped him and said, broken, “I don’t fucking remember,” and she had to drop her empty coffee cup and turn; sat on the chair under the window and pulled him down till he was kneeling at her feet on the linoleum and put his head on her lap, shaking, and dry-eyed and steady she rocked him in her arms and wished to god she’d had the opportunity to kill Leo Novokov as slowly and as painfully as she knew how.

+++

Steve woke up not long after midnight, eyes startlingly blue in his bloodless face. Natasha was lying on James’ chest in the other bed; Steve’s gasp, the rustle of the blankets and hospital gown as he moved, woke her from her doze, and when she moved it woke James in turn. Then she was at Steve’s side, holding his hands in hers.

“Love, love, it’s all right.”

“You – Buck –“

“Hey.” James behind her, bending over Steve; she sat on the bed to give him room. “Congratulations, you’ve had heart surgery.” He kissed Steve’s chapped lips, grinning tightly.

“You’re both all right,” said Steve, and Natasha could see him relax, see the rush of relief that shook through him and left him limp; he was asleep again before she could even kiss him herself.

+++

“I don’t know what to say, to be honest.” Jamie wrapped her hands around the coffee James had brought her, swaying her weight from foot to foot – it was an odd little habit that Natasha thought Jamie probably did to keep herself awake or alert, that constant low-level movement. She was pale – haggard – but she was smiling. “He’s… he’s healing. He’s healing at a rate that… well, I can’t give you a ratio but if this keeps up I’ll probably be able to discharge him by next week. He’s already in a condition I would expect to see in a patient nearly a week out of surgery, and it’s been less than ten hours.”

“OK,” said James. “OK, no infections or…”

“Has that happened?”

“Yeah, bad… coupla days in Austria, once. It, uh, I had to cut him open again and… it was messy. It healed, but it took weeks.”

Natasha swayed a little herself. She could just picture – some abandoned barn, maybe, or a dank cellar, trapped in enemy territory; she didn’t think she was inclined to be over-imaginative, but her brain was currently supplying her with vivid Technicolor images of James’ hands pressing Steve down, holding the knife-point to reddened pus-y skin…

“We’ll be careful of course,” said Jamie. “To be honest I wasn’t sure he could get infections.” She sighed. “Seriously, you two. He’s gonna be OK.”

“It took longer than this after DC,” said Natasha, and wouldn’t look at James when he flinched; but then he said, “It took longer than this every time.”

Jamie smiled a little. “I know cardiac surgery sounds like the worst thing ever, but it was one bullet wound, and he’s healing cleanly. In DC you were talking about three, plus he’d taken about six different beatings over the course of what, three days, and had kept on pushing through it; _plus_ sheer emotional exhaustion. This time the most strenuous physical activity he’s performed all week is climbing the stairs. He’s nowhere near as exhausted.”

Natasha nodded slowly, rubbing at her upper arms with her hands. Jamie put her coffee down and reached out to her then – it was probably the first time they had embraced, and Natasha was reminded quite suddenly that Jamie was thirty years older than she and had two children of her own, nearly adults… and how strange it must be for James, to be comforted by a niece whose birth had still been years in the future when he had last laid eyes on his sister… Awkwardly Natasha returned the hug, but when Jamie drew back her look was knowing and sympathetic.

“Why don’t you go home and get some sleep? Huh?”

They held off till Sam arrived, looking a little haggard himself, but his and Jamie’s combined orders to go the fuck away were not easy to resist.

Yet going home was an exercise in disassociation. It was morning again, a shock to the senses after the fluorescent changelessness of the intensive care unit. The city was just waking up; millions of people were going about their days as if nothing had happened, nothing at all… In a warehouse by the Hudson clean-up crews were disposing of what was left of Leo Novokov… Happy drove them back to Brooklyn, and sitting silent in the back of Tony’s ridiculous limo Natasha couldn’t take her eyes off the red line along James’ cheekbone. It _would_ scar. Served him right. It was only fair. Sometimes, in her nightmares, she felt again the punch at her waist, the rip of pain, the way the world spun around her as the impact of the bullet flung her around, but then the face of the dead man on his knees behind her would be Steve’s…

The house was still theirs. Novokov had not discovered where they lived; had not desecrated their home by bringing the old war into it. A little over twenty-four hours ago Natasha had put these boots on in this hall, had slid her phone into her jacket pocket, had stood on tiptoes to kiss her boyfriend in front of this table, this coat-rack. She dropped the sweater Pepper had given her and stood motionless on the rug, staring dully into the empty house… when James sat down heavily on the bottom step to wrestle with the laces of his boots the noise made her jump. After a moment he gave it up as a bad job and simply sat, hands loose on his thighs. His very stillness drew the eye, like an illustration in a dictionary: Exhaustion. Grief.

“He’s alive,” Natasha said. Her voice seemed to echo through the house; it made her flinch again. Their books were as they had left them; the dishwasher would be waiting to be emptied; upstairs Steve’s half-finished drawings would still be scattered across the art room, and Natasha’s ballet shoes hanging from the back of the chair in their bedroom, where the bed was deliciously unmade, rumpled and waiting. Nothing, in short, was changed…

And yet.

James’ smile was crooked. “So are you.”

She tried to smile back. He held out a hand to her: his left hand, the one that had closed around Novokov’s throat and dragged him off her, forcing his face into the fire… Natasha stumbled, going to him, and near fell into his lap. She wound her arms about his neck and pressed her face into his hair, feeling helpless and childish. His arms closed tight around her, and for a long time the only thing she heard was his slow steady breathing.

+++

It was evening when they returned to the hospital. They had slept – fitfully – showered; James had cajoled Natasha into eating some bread and jam and made her mug after mug of strong, scalding hot sweet tea, all _please love for me_ and pleading, worried eyes. Her efforts to get him to eat had been less successful, not least because he could go without it for another twenty-four hours or more, the bastard. She wanted to feel patronised, but she was too tired.

“He woke up once and asked for you,” said Sam, “but I think he was asleep again before I’d finished answering him. Jamie says all his vitals and stuff are looking good.”

It was stupid, really – sitting here in the room with him listening to him breathe, to the monitors beep and the hospital noises beyond the door. Irrational and a waste of time: the number of things she should be doing…! Coordinate with Pepper and Maria, check the status of the clean-up, make sure no news of the shooting had escaped to the wider public, call Clint and ask him if he had any leads – so many questions still unanswered – how had Novokov found them, how had he discovered the Soldier’s identity, had he known the specifics of their relationship to Steve or was it all a lucky guess; how had he survived and who had sheltered him – equipped him… her head was spinning.

Steve was alive.

+++

The next time he woke he lasted a little longer, enough that they managed to explain what had happened.

“He was after you.”

“He’s dead,” Natasha repeated.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” James said.

“I love you,” said Steve, sounding tired and hoarse. “I’m allowed to worry.”

“When did we make that arrangement?”

“Age of four.” Steve gripped Natasha’s hands tight.

+++

Almost the strangest thing about the whole mess was how much Steve slept. Natasha had seen him wounded before of course, but never as badly as this since DC, the aftermath of which she had not been around for. Steve didn’t usually sleep more than five hours a night, but here he was, snoozing for up to twenty hours a day as his body healed and the IV lines pumped twice the amounts of nutrients and fluids into him than an ordinary person needed. Still and silent save for the sound of his own breathing; slowly colour was coming back into his face, and sometimes his eyes would move under his eyelids for a few moments, or his fingers would twitch.

Watching someone sleep – even someone you loved more than life itself – for hours every day was really fucking boring, as it turned out.

+++

“Bed rest, chiefly,” said Jamie. “He needs to keep still and let himself heal for a couple of weeks. After that, physio – you and Bucky can probably do that with him if we can’t figure out anyone trustworthy. But he needs to take it easy.”

James stayed at the hospital; Natasha went home, Jamie’s words ringing in her ears, to sleep again, shower, change her clothes. She stumbled up the stairs listening to the silence, the gaping emptiness in their home where Steve was supposed to be, and she fell through their bedroom door and stared around the room: would they have to move anything, to make it easier for Steve? What would they need, IV poles, wheelchairs? Maybe it would be easier to turn the living room into his bedroom; the stairs were narrow and – and –

Natasha slid down the door and wrapped her arms around her knees. “No,” she said out loud. “No.” There was no way in hell she could bear to watch Steve recover from those wounds in this house. This was their home, their hard-won sanctuary; no might-have-beens belonged here, no bloodstained bandages and waxen faces and wheelchairs, no IV poles and endless bottles of medication. She couldn’t stand it.

+++

Pepper, to her eternal credit, didn’t even hesitate.

"Of course I meant it," she said. "Change of scenery. Give you all some space to relax. What does Doctor Barnes say?"

+++

Doctor Barnes said, "I don't see why not, though it seems a pretty long way to go for bed rest and peace and quiet."

"You haven't really met many of our friends besides Sam, have you," said Natasha.

+++

Steve said, "What for?" sounding suspicious.

"Because I said so," said Natasha.

"Have you run this one by Bucky?"

"Of course." Kind of.

"But why?"

"I think it would do everybody good."

Steve said, "I don't really like vacations."

Natasha raised an eyebrow. "When was the last time you had one?" If either of the pair of stupid lugs she’d been fool enough to shackle herself to had ever been on vacation in their damn lives she thought she would probably eat her favourite boots.

"Well," said Steve. "When we were twelve Mr Barnes suggested to my Ma that I should go with Buck to his brother's farm in Indiana for a month or two, it would do me good, you know, my lungs and such. And then we spent the next three summers digging fence posts and getting threatened by cows." The memory made him glower. "I hate nature."

"We're not going camping," said Natasha, struggling to hold on to her temper. "Pepper's offered us the mansion."

"Oh!" Steve brightened up. "That's different."

Natasha sighed.

+++

James said, "But I don't really like -"

"Pepper offered us the mansion," Natasha said wearily. "I told you this."

"Oh!" He brightened up. "That's different."

Natasha sighed again.

+++

"I'll swing by and water the plants and stuff," Sam offered.

Natasha stared at him. "We don't have any plants."

"What," said Sam. "How do you _live_ , Nat, what kind of person doesn't have plants?"

"People who hate nature," Natasha said sourly.

+++

"Well you know the kids would love to have you," said Clint.

"Steve's supposed to be recovering," said Natasha.

"So you're flying him halfway across the world because Stark's Hawai'i mansion is just so much better equipped, medically speaking, than the Tower?" Clint sounded amused.

"You know what you should really be doing?" said Natasha. "Remodelling the kitchen and minding your own business."

"Would you like me to die?" Clint said interestedly. "I've remodelled the kitchen three times since we married, I like my balls where they are, thank you."

"So does Laura, judging by the number of babies you insist on having," said Natasha.

"They're making a care package for Steve, shall I send it straight to Hawai'i?" Clint asked sweetly.

Natasha hung up on him.

+++

“No AIs,” Natasha said.

“God, like I want to know if you people are screwing like bunnies in my best Hawaiian beds,” said Tony. “Go forth and tan, Romanov, you need it, you’ve been wandering around looking like a ghost for weeks. He’s as healthy as a horse, you doofus.”

“Stark, I want you to know, grateful as I am for the loan of the house, though technically that was Pepper” – Natasha drew a breath – “you are _shit_ at comforting people.”

+++ 

She called Laura in the middle of the night the day before they were due to whisk Steve out of the hospital and onto the plane to Hawai’i, but as soon as Laura answered the phone Natasha’s English deserted her; all she had left was Russian, untranslatable, which boiled down, in essence, to a single word.

Laura didn’t speak, or hang up, or even ask Natasha to speak. She just left the connection open, hour after hour, listening to Natasha breathe, letting Natasha hear Laura and Clint breathing, hundreds of miles away.

Her family, safe.

+++

“Excellent,” said Steve when the plane was finally gathering speed along the runway. “Two months in the sunshine with no one for company but the two people I love most in the world.”

“Sap,” said James.

Natasha looked away, watching JFK airport rolling past outside the window.

+++

When they touched down in Hawai’i a rainstorm had just passed; the sun was out and the air was hot and steaming with condensation, wet ground and trees and cars sparkling with raindrops. It was a three-hour drive out of the city to Tony’s beachside mansion, and while Steve dozed – again! – and James hung out of the window watching the scenery in silence Natasha closed her eyes for what felt like the first time in a fortnight.

No one knew they were here. No one would think to look for them here. They were half a world away from their usual haunts and only the people they trusted to have their backs every day of their lives knew where they were and why.

James touched her knee. She jumped a little.

“You’re missing the view.”

“We’ve got two months for the view.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

He chuckled. “Come here then.”

She had slept in less comfortable places than the back of a limo, and few of them had held both her loves, dozing and contented. Natasha settled into James’ arms, trusting him to hold her in place.

“Are you OK?” she asked softly, glad she couldn’t look at him.

He paused a moment. Then he sighed. “Pretty much. He’s alive.” He drummed his fingers against her hip. “It ain’t the first time, and it sure as eggs is eggs ain’t gonna be the last.”

She snorted.

“You learn to deal,” he said quietly. “That’s loving someone.”

Natasha didn’t know what to say. She closed her eyes, nestled her face into his shoulder, smelling day-old clothes and mouthwash-breath. At the last minute, before she slid away into sleep, she reached across the narrow space and wrapped her fingers around Steve’s wrist.

+++

The mansion was gorgeous: wide-open rooms, a pool, a private beach, a library, a spectacular garden, a huge kitchen and a gym. Natasha walked the perimeter three times and checked the security system twice.

+++

Waking in a strange bed was more disorientating than it should have been for someone with Natasha’s training; perhaps it was because of how long and how deeply she had slept. For a few moments she lay stiff and surprised, staring at the French windows opposite the bed, the balcony beyond them, the unfamiliar furniture, the marble and sandstone in place of wood and plaster. Then the rest of her surroundings registered: Steve at her back, James’ steady breathing. The sound of the waves on the beach fifty yards away filled up the room, and already – what time was it? – the sun was bright and hot.

Natasha closed her eyes and went back to sleep.  

+++

Steve’s physio in the hospital had been a remote, impersonal thing, watched from a distance, straightforward exercises and routines to follow before he stood up or tried to walk. Now, alone with him far from anyone who knew them, with no professional physical therapists in sight, it was touch and smell and breathing in tandem, a slow re-acclimatisation to physical contact with him. After the first time Natasha had felt a bit of a creep – the man was ill, he didn’t need her perving on him just now – but Steve’s faint smile when they touched, the way his breathing quickened and then slowed as he made himself relax, were nothing but encouraging.

“I feel as if I’ve been put out on display for half the members of the medical profession in the US of A to poke at,” he said the third or fourth time. “Packs of impersonal strangers.” He pulled a face. “It’s so good when you touch me, Tasha.”

She couldn’t quite look at him. “James too?”

“Of course.” Steve sounded puzzled.

“Only he’s got cold hands in the mornings.”

Steve laughed.

“I love you too, darling,” said James from where he was sprawled on the other couch, lazy as sin and twice as inviting.

Natasha bit her lip and didn’t say anything.

+++

“You know what gets to me?”

James’ voice, low and gentle, so slow it was nearly slurred. Natasha paused outside the bedroom door; Steve was sitting on the edge of the bed, his back to her, hair very bright in the sunshine glow reflecting off the walls. They spent a lot of time outside when they were in New York; here it was like someone had dyed Steve’s hair overnight, painted highlights into James’, covered their skin with freckles. That was what you got for being Irish.

Steve said, “I never know what’s goin’ on in your head.”

James laughed. “Liar.” He was kneeling at Steve’s feet, Natasha realised; that was why she couldn’t see him. “You wouldn’t have let me do this seventy years ago. Not sure you woulda let me do this two years ago.”

Steve was silent. After a little while he said quietly, “I lost you.”

James laughed again. He always laughed at him when Steve grew melancholy. “Not really.”

“Real enough to me while I was living it, I promise you.”

“Hmm. So now you’re compensating?”

Steve sighed. “So now maybe I’ve noticed that there are more important things than pride.”

“Aww.”

“You’re an asshole.” Very loving.

“Don’t I know it.”

“You could _pretend_ to be a wreck that I nearly died.”

“You’ve been nearly dying on me on a semi-regular basis since we were four. Remember Christmas ’29?”

“The Great Bronchitis Crisis of the Rogers-Barnes Christmas season.” Suddenly Steve sounded amused. “I thought Aunt Ellie was gonna leave us all and run away to California. Ma would’ve gone with her if she’d asked.”

“Whenever I look at Alice’s twins,” said James, “I remember Emmylou sprawling out on her back under the Christmas tree in her nightdress and telling the whole house she was dying, couldn’t she see her presents before she passed? Wouldn’t that be the Christian thing to do for a poor dying child?”

Steve started to laugh, but he had to stop again quickly, groaning and rubbing at his chest. “Ugh, don’t.” Natasha was smiling too. Alice was Emily Louise’s… what, tenth or eleventh granddaughter? She had lost track of most of James’s nieces almost as soon as she had been introduced to them, except those that still lived in New York. Everyone else was a blur of half-remembered faces and an endless string of reported phone calls and emails, like most of the Commandos’ children and grandchildren.

Solemnly, James said, “I knew you’d be fine. You’re too stubborn to ditch me and too in love with Tasha to leave her.”

“I have had far more than my fair share of being apart from both of you,” said Steve, and then James made a noise that – and Natasha slipped away, silent, back downstairs, whatever she’d come up for long since forgotten.

+++

When the bandages had come off for good on their second day in Hawai’i Natasha had thought she might throw up: pinkish, raised and knotted, the scars sat prominent in the centre of Steve’s chest, over his heart. But after a moment, staring at them, the nausea had faded. Steve never scarred; to look at him and have irrefutable proof it hadn’t been some hazy shared nightmare, to be able to touch the evidence that he’d survived, he’d healed, he was still hers, hers and James’…

+++

An hour or so later James came and found her swimming laps in the pool, tiring herself out. She thought if she went into the ocean she might yet strike out for the mainland and even make it.

“Natalya?” he said.

She trod water, looking up at him, squinting against the sun-glare on his left arm. “What’s the matter?”

James sighed. “Nothing, sweetheart,” he said, and for some fool reason the endearment – usually restricted to use in bed – made her tremble. She bit her lip. He smiled at her. She thought his eyes were a little red. “I love you.”

There was an unpleasant lump in her throat. “I love you too. Jesus Christ, if after all this time that still needs saying…”

“There’s not a damn romantic bone in your body,” he told her. “Steve’s asleep, you wanna trash the kitchen trying to cook something and then put a shitty movie on to scoff at?”

In spite of herself, she started laughing. “Yeah. OK. I mean when you put it like that I absolutely see the appeal.”

He held out his left hand to her; she reached up with both of hers and grasped it – bit back a shriek of delight when he lifted her bodily out of the water with no more effort than if she’d been a child, and when he kissed her she wrapped her wet arms around his neck and kissed him back, smiling against his mouth.

+++

Steve had survived. He’d healed. He was still hers. And she had killed Novokov herself; lured him in and finished him, taken care to mutilate his corpse beyond any miraculous repair. He had taken nothing from her except a few hours of anxiety at Steve’s bedside that first day, and even those had been pointless. Jamie had said from the first that it would be all right. Everyone had.

The mirror in the warehouse-sized bathroom showed her a pretty redhead with a tan and a growing number of her own freckles across the bridge of her nose. When she smiled she could be any good-natured holidaymaker, but grave and solemn she was herself: Natalia Romanova – the Black Widow.

Suddenly she laughed, mocking herself, watching her face relax into sweet, simple lines. “The Black Widow,” she murmured. “Come on.” Outside the open window, down in the garden, they were laughing, arguing, voices raised and happy.

She hoped the word got out. She hoped everyone knew; hoped it was common knowledge already, what the Widow would do to anyone fool enough to take a shot at Rogers or Barnes. Natasha had been given more second chances than she deserved; she would not throw any away for carelessness.

You’re mine, my darlings, and I’m keeping you.

+++

“Just checking on you,” said Clint.

“Peachy keen,” said Natasha. She thought she meant it.

She heard the smile in his voice. “I’m glad.”

+++

It was another week or so before Steve could move around as easily and freely as ever, and almost the first thing he did was make a beeline for the pool.

The man was a tactician, after all.

“He’s driving me crazy,” said Natasha.

“Stay strong, he’s doing it on purpose,” said James.

She propped herself up on an elbow and gave him a look.

“I mean I know you know that. I’m just saying.”

Watching Steve haul himself out of the pool, all long limbs and muscle and cascading water, was Doing Things to Natasha. Judging by the way James was determinedly not looking at their boyfriend, it was Doing Things to him, too. Even the knotted scars over Steve’s heart were not a detraction from his physical beauty, his re-gained grace of movement.

It had been a long month. Screw her if she was feeling shallow.

“What exactly,” said Steve, coming over to the deckchair they were curled on and glaring down at them, “do I have to do.”

“Wait two more days,” said James, dropping his book over his face so he wouldn’t be tempted.

Natasha couldn’t take her eyes off the waistband of those damn swim trunks. Or the fingers on those ridiculous hips. Or the line of his cock slowly hardening under her gaze.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” said Steve, in an uncharacteristic outburst of not-directly-sex-related profanity.

“Jamie said –“

“Look at me I’m perfectly healed!”

“Our niece the incredibly successful trauma surgeon who saved your stupid life said strenuous physical activity –“

“I’ve been in the pool all day –“

“- and by that she didn’t mean _hiking volcanoes –_ ” said James.

“Nat,” said Steve.

“Yes,” said Natasha. “I mean no. I mean will you take your ridiculous abs someplace else, please, now?” James had the right idea. She dropped her head onto his chest so she wouldn’t have to see them.

“Fine,” said Steve. “You know what, fine. I’m gonna go upstairs and jerk off in that big empty bed that we haven’t even christened yet thinking about all the desperate, sweaty, thank-god-Steve’s-alive sex that you had after Novokov went down while I was in the hospital.”

“Yes, getting our rocks off was the first thing on both our minds,” said James.

“Probably didn’t even make it up the stairs,” Steve said, ignoring him. “Probably didn’t even make it out of your clothes. He’s always threatenin’ to rip those jeans off you, did he do it this time, Tasha, did you drag him to the stairs and sit on his lap and just –“

“Oh my fucking god,” said Natasha.

“You are a goddamn menace,” said James, and pounced. Steve went down easily, laughing, sprawled out wet and alive and beautiful in the soft green grass, and Natasha slid off the deckchair to join them.

“Ugh, chlorine.”

“Trying to work off my frustrations,” said Steve, rolling his hips. “Oh god, yeah.”

“Bit of a hair trigger, darlin’,” James murmured.

“Always when I’m healing,” said Steve, flushed.

James started grinning. “Never told me that before.”

“Never in a position to ask you to help with it,” Steve pointed out. “Ah, come on, please, please. I – I need it, I –“

“You really do,” Natasha said, a little wondering. “You should have said, we didn’t know… there, that’s it, let go, let it all go, we’ve got you, we’ll take care of you…” Her own and James’ hand wrapped around Steve’s cock, stroking slowly, the wet swim trunks pushed to the side, and hair trigger was an understatement; Steve was already flushed and twisting and moaning low in his throat, wet gold hair darker than usual but still bright against the grass, the sun glittering off the water droplets on his fair skin. They’d have to take him inside soon or he’d burn – so would Natasha, come to that – he cried out, and Natasha nudged his head to the side and nibbled on his ear just the way he liked it and he was gone, messing himself all up beautifully, breathing hard and clutching at them and barely going soft, and Natasha and James kissed him over and over, trading that lush red mouth off between them, until he sighed and bit his lips and said, “Thank you,” blue eyes glinting mischievously.

“How much of a hair trigger,” Natasha said, suspicious.

Steve went red.

“Ooooooh, marathon sex.” Oh, oh yes please. She could taste ecstasy in the back of her throat already; her cunt was wet and she clenched it deliberately, phantom memory of fingers, tongue, cock inside her. She had to swallow, hard, her breath fluttering in her chest, her hand loose and gentle on Steve’s cock, re-learning the feel of him under her palm and fingertips as if they had been apart for years.

He laughed. “It’s just that –“

“It’s just nothing.” She kissed him again. “You should have said.”

Steve squirmed again, faintly embarrassed – wasn’t that just like him: tease them into getting him off right here in the garden in the sunshine, but ashamed to actually ask for it…

It wasn’t really about the sex, though you’d be forgiven for thinking it. Steve always had a hard time asking for things for himself. He was getting better at it, but non-verbal stuff was still easiest: a touch on the arm to ask for an embrace, the way he went to his knees at your feet instead of saying, _please hold me down and use me till I can’t see straight_. Natasha understood – it was hard for her too – but it drove James up the wall. He loved to ask for things – revelled in knowing that he could, and revelled in knowing that the chances of Steve or Natasha saying no to him were pretty damn low to non-existent.

“There, never mind.” James kissed Steve, kissed Natasha, smiling. “We’ll take care of you. Think you can stand up, sweetheart, come inside? Made such a lovely mess of you, gonna wash it all off and start from scratch” – and Steve was actually squirming again already – “besides, I’m not gonna blow you while you taste of chlorine,” his voice snapping out of that husky purr to very matter-of-fact, and Steve was startled into a burst of laughter.

“Yeah, go on,” he said, laughing. “If you’re sure you can wait that long. I’ll suck you off out here, come on, out here in the sunshine… Nat too…” He tipped his head back, eyes half-closed, and licked his lips wantonly. “Eat you out for hours. Think I’ve forgotten what you taste like.”

“ _You’re_ not gonna last that long,” said Natasha, fighting down a shiver. “Come on.” She stood up, wobbly with desire; two pairs of pretty blue eyes tracked her movement appreciatively, dragged gazes heavy as a touch up her bare legs, her abdomen, her chest. There was no fighting back this shiver, the one it always gave her to see them looking at her with such naked, honest want. James followed her up and pulled her close. It took a lot of heat for the metal arm to absorb it – it was like the shield that way – but it was body-warm and gentle through the shirt she wore over her bikini: one of Steve’s. She pressed in against him, and the kiss was slow and warm and leisurely, his hands cupping her head, fingers in her hair.

Too slow, too leisurely. Natasha pushed up on her tiptoes, closed her eyes, savoured every second; desperation unfolded in her belly, and for an instant she shook with it before she forced it back. The first time flashed into her mind… not the first time ever, but the first time in this new life they had built, each singly and then together: slow and achingly gentle and not a little tearful. This felt like that… Her hands were on James’ shoulders, his skin sunbathe-hot against her own, and he tasted like beer and the salt of the chips they had been eating… his lips pulled tight against hers when he smiled, and she hummed into his mouth, dazed with want, with touch, with happiness, with love.

Strong damp fingers wrapped around her right ankle. “Love you so much,” Steve said quietly.

“Get up here,” James said, laughing soft and warm. “There.” He put one arm round Natasha’s waist and dragged Steve close, kissed him as he’d just kissed Natasha. Steve moaned for it, leant into it, returned it with interest. And Natasha, deep and wet, his fingers clenched on the hem of the shirt so that she trembled – caught between them – Steve’s heartbeat thudded wanting-quick under her palm, and the chlorine taste of his mouth was not enough to detract from the hot familiarity of it, the perfect ease with which they found one another again.

“Anyway, you started it.”

She huffed, their mouths brushing together, her arms round his neck. “You think?”

Steve’s eyes went dark and smoky. “I never tell you it gets me going when you wear my clothes?”

Natasha licked her lips. “I’ll make sure to do it more often.”

That got her another kiss; James laughing. “Inside, come on.”

Inside was the giant bathroom, the shower large enough for all three of them; they stood under the hot spray and stripped each other’s swim costumes off, laughing and kissing. Easy, easy, perfectly familiar, utterly right. She ogled them shamelessly and basked in their gazes on her, only showing off a little. Probably it wasn’t fair of her and James to pin Steve against the wall of the shower and soap him up with teasing hands; a pretty pink flush rode high on his cheekbones and his eyes were fluttering by the time they were done, hands clenching and unclenching by his hips, his cock fully hard again.

“Hey,” said James, tugging Natasha across the shower stall; he leant against the wall opposite from Steve and drew her into his arms, her back to his chest, all hot wet skin and wandering hands. Steve was breathing hard, trying to keep himself under control, the most beautiful thing she had had ever seen, excepting only the man behind her. “Yeah?” James murmured in her ear, asking for control; permission to surprise her. Natasha shivered as his breath ghosted over her wet skin, as he cupped her tits in his hands and then went farther south, a long sweep of a caress down to her thighs. She turned her head to brush a kiss against his jaw, widened her stance very deliberately, biting at her lips as James took the invitation and stroked her cunt.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Oh, please, yes.” He kissed her; stars and sunbursts and long lazy Sundays in their bed at home with nothing to do but love each other; she had it all again, it had never left her, they had never left her. She thought about crying, but that seemed stupid when she could be getting fucked instead.

“Steve,” James said, voice rich and heavy with desire.

Steve opened his eyes. Natasha smiled at him, wide and wanting, studied him from head to toes, letting her eyes drag over him the way his had dragged over her in the garden.

Whatever was coming next, it was going to be amazing.

James kissed her temple. “Come over here and fuck our girlfriend while I hold her up for you.”

Natasha’s hands clamped down on his forearm so quick she thought she might’ve drawn blood with her fingernails if it hadn’t been the left one. “ _Right the fuck now_ ,” she managed – superfluous – Steve was already there – hands on her hips lifting her up, her hands scrambled for purchase on Steve’s wet shoulders – she wrapped her legs over Steve’s hips and pounded on his chest with the heels of her hands, laughing – “Get in me oh my god oh my fucking god” – and cried out sharp and wordless: it had been so long, so fucking long, the stretch and burn and the way James’ hands were tight on the underside of her thighs, holding her up and holding her open, she’d have handprints tomorrow, god alfuckingmighty yes, and Steve tipped forwards, pressing her against James’ chest, his hands on the wall to either side of James’ body, she was trapped, suffocated, encircled completely, wet skin sliding on wet skin, feeling the rub of James’ scars against her left shoulder-blade, and Steve nudged her head back with his own and kissed her and pounded her back against James’ body until she thought she just might die of it.

And that was before James started to talk. “God, Nat, look at you, so beautiful like this, love how wet you are for it, how much you want it, how you just melt into it, let us do any damn thing we want. Was gonna stand here and make Steve watch while I got you off with my hands and then I thought, Barnes, I thought, you know how much our sweet girl loves bein’ manhandled.”

“Make me watch,” Steve said wildly. “You think so? Was a second away from comin’ over here, dragging you into the bedroom” – he turned his head to kiss James hard – “you promised me a blowjob.” He was making her see stars on every goddamn thrust and blunt though her fingernails were they were ripping his biceps and his shoulders apart and if this ever, ever stopped she thought she would die.

“So I did,” said James, and Natasha could feel his cock dragging against the underside of her ass, her thighs, “and you’ll get one, after I’ve laid Nat out on that big bed and eaten your come out of her and messed her all up again –“

“Hey,” she said through a throat dry as the fucking Sahara desert, “hey, do I get a say, you throw me down and fuck me through that mattress, just slide right in and mess me up even more, but Steve doesn’t get a damn blowjob till _I’ve_ had _him_.”

Steve nearly lost the rhythm then, and she swore at him, breathless. “You brought the strap-on to Hawai’i, seriously –“

“What, what, was Customs gonna go through my bags, you nearly died and I _am_ gonna make you regret it –“ Steve made a noise between a laugh and a sob and caught her mouth in a punishing kiss, sucking her tongue nearly in perfect time with the thrusts splitting her open.

“Yes,” he muttered, “yes, yes, have me, take me, put me on my knees and make me yours, missed this so much, missed you so much, Tasha, Tasha –“

“You’re a genius,” James said against the side of her face, “you are, sweetheart, I love you so fucking much, gonna buckle that on you with your thighs all wet, watch you open Steve up and just go to town.”

“Like he’s doing right now.” Natasha laughed, moaned, clenched down on Steve’s cock, rolled her hips down into the next thrust as best she could, and the next, and the next. Steve’s arms were trembling; he squeezed his eyes shut and shook, fighting to keep the rhythm steady – “No,” Natasha said, “don’t wait for me, sweetheart, just take it, just let go, come on, come on,” – and it was gone, he slammed into her again and again and came with a strangled shout, pulsing hot inside her; she clenched around him, peppered his face with kisses, crooned endearments as he calmed, ignoring her own hot desperation. They were all going to fall over in another minute – James wrestled everyone to the floor in one piece, Steve sprawled out panting on his back, hot water running around them, the spray on their faces, and Natasha wriggled away from Steve, groaned when his cock slid out of her, and canted her hips for James behind her.

“Come on, Soldier, put your back into it.” Please, please, get in me, be in me. She laughed out loud when he pressed her flat to Steve’s chest and pushed inside, tensed up and moaned. His hands were heavy in the crease of her hips and her face was hot, her blood pounding under her skin.

“Look at you,” Steve said, trembling hands stroking her wet hair back from her face, “just look at you. Relax, sweetheart, you know how good he’s gonna make you feel, just the same as you just did for me…”

“Yes, god.” Natasha stretched and shimmied back and sighed. “So full, Jesus, you feel good in me, you both – you always –”

Full body shudder; he dropped over her back and kissed her shoulders, her spine, the nape of her neck. “Wanna see you sweetheart, please –” James pulled back, caught her hips; Natasha rolled easily, off of Steve and onto the floor, just a little rough so you wouldn’t slip on it, she didn’t have an outright kink for pain the way Steve did but oh the faint scratch against her shoulders, her ass; Steve curled his arm under her head and trapped her leg under one of his as she pulled James down to her and wrapped her other leg over his hip, left hand gleaming propped palm down on the floor between herself and Steve, and then –

Steve kept her still, kept them from sliding across half the room-sized shower stall with every thrust, he was stroking James’ back, squeezing his ass, urging him on, and Natasha dug her hands into James’ sides and kissed and kissed and kissed that panting luscious mouth, muffling her cries against it as he shook her apart, as he made her whole again, and came, shatteringly, at almost the exact same time he did.

Everyone was on a damn hair trigger, she thought hazily in the aftermath, half-asleep. Never had they ever gone so long without this. There were jobs for Nick and bad weeks when James couldn’t stand to be touched and times when she hid herself in her safehouse in Queens and lay for hours on the living room floor listening to the blessed silence; there were even times, much more rarely, when Steve needed to be alone (of the three of them, he was usually the one who most needed touch to ground himself). But this had been something else entirely, and now – fucked out on the shower floor underneath them – some missing part of _them_ had been put back into place; something broken had been fixed. She was dazed and drunk on touch and pleasure, her conscious mind floating off into the stratosphere, she felt bright and new-made and vulnerable, beautiful, whole.

“Come on,” Steve said at last, voice slow and blurred. “My fingers are wrinkling.”

James laughed at him. Natasha groaned. “Leave me here to _sleep_ ,” she said.

“Not likely,” Steve said. “I’ve got promises of sexual favours left right and centre, and later today I _am_ gonna cash in.” He kissed her temple. “You better be properly rested.”

“That sounds like a challenge if I’ve ever heard one.” James rolled off her, collapsing with a thump. His metal fingers and the heel of his hand had left six perfect dents in the shower floor, and the tile was scratched on the wall where the force of Steve’s thrusts from before had pushed his shoulder against it again and again. Natasha grinned at it, stupidly delighted; her cunt felt swollen and hot and sore, her thighs were aching, and her shoulders and ass would be at least a little burned by the floor. It was glorious.

“God, I love putting that smug grin on your face.” James leaned over and kissed her. “You’re amazing.”

“Say the least,” Steve said. “Oh my god, the face you made when Buck lifted you up. I thought I was gonna come right then.”

Natasha squirmed happily. “ _I_ nearly did. Gonna feel you for days. Where are you going, come back.” Steve had stood up and moved across the stall; she was fairly sure he could’ve gone another round with the minimum of foreplay right there and then – but then again: strenuous physical activity. He came back with a washcloth, knelt beside her to clean off her sticky thighs; then he bent and kissed her navel and she pushed at his scratched-up shoulder, laughing: “Don’t start!”

“Someone turn the water off,” said James. How they got dry without collapsing was anybody’s guess, but the bed was even bigger than their own at home, soft and fluffy and beautiful, and the French windows were open; sea-smell and palm trees, mown grass and the rich, heady scent of the flowerbeds. The walls and floor glowed gold in the afternoon sunlight. James tumbled Steve into the middle of the – unmade – bed as if he were still five foot nothing and thinner than Natasha; Steve sprawled across the mattress – he started to laugh, but then he stopped, and the look on his face grew solemn, awed.

“I wasn’t scared,” he said. “That’s the last thing I remember thinking. It’ll be fine. Bucky and Nat are both here with me.”

Natasha dropped the towel she’d been rubbing through her hair. It made a soft, damp little thump on the floor. James was by the bed with his knee on the mattress, ready to crawl beside Steve; she saw the strong curve of his body, the way he swayed back, how, at the same time, his hands reached for Steve, open in the air between them like a supplication. She didn’t know what her own hands were doing.

Steve was smiling, his eyes soft, all the lines of his body gentle, open in a way that went far beyond sex. And still, somehow, very solemn – very earnest. “And when I woke up you still were.”

“Where else would we be?” James said softly – wondering. He knelt on the bed, touched Steve’s thigh and hip and waist, bent over him. “Hmm?” The dark head lowered; he kissed the ugly knot of scars, the puckering of the bullet wound, the vertical slash of the surgery, where Jamie had had to cut him open again to get the bullet out after his healing factor had begun to force the thing even deeper into his chest.

“Fell off a train while I was asleep,” said Steve thickly, gripping James so tight his skin whitened around the dents of Steve’s fingers on his ribs. “Vanished, maybe, without a word…” As she had, after DC: gone to lick her wounds in private, and no reason not to, at the time… when Natasha moved she felt as if she took the steps to the bed in a trance.

James’ skin under her fingers was hot and damp and yet not quite real. Steve was looking at her; his eyes were the colour of the summer sky on a hot day, and though he could hide himself when he chose to he wasn’t bothering now. “I love you.” He said the words to her face and he said them into the curve of James’ shoulder, and he closed his eyes and repeated them as if he had only just learnt the meaning. “I love you. I love you…”

She couldn’t touch him, she couldn’t, she let her hand drop away from James’ side and had to force herself not to snatch it back as if the touch of his skin burned her, her throat was closing up, it hurt, it _hurt_ , and she stepped over the towel she’d dropped on the floor and slammed the bathroom door shut between them and, for the first time since Steve had been shot because of her, Natasha let herself cry. It came up from the pit of her stomach, deep, wrenching sobs that shook her whole body; she had to sit down, slid into a heap against the wall, digging her nails into her own legs where she was bent over her knees. Three feet away, right in front of her and less than thirty minutes ago she had had Steve in her, she could still feel the ache in her cunt, he was alive, he _was_ alive, but the fact remained: it nearly hadn’t happened at all, ever again.

When was the last time, before the shooting? Suddenly it was terribly important to remember. Her breath was coming in tearing, angry gasps, and her hands were clenching convulsively, but her mind was perfectly clear and calm and it wanted to know when the last time had been: that same morning, had she ridden him while James fucked his face, no, that had been before, Steve had fingered her in the shower – no – she had been on top, but James hadn’t slept well and had gone for a run, and she and Steve had been laughing about – about something on the radio, god, they had been fucking – they had been _making love_ and laughing about the _radio_ , as if that deserved so much as a second’s notice compared to the heat of him in her, his chest under her hands, the sounds he made, the smile he gave her…

When her sobs had died down, finally, he came and put his arms around her. Natasha pounded his arm with her balled fist, shaking. “What’s the point of your stupid fucking super-serum if you still end up in a coma on an operating table when some psychotic nutjob shoots you because of me?”

Steve put his face against the back of her neck and didn’t answer.

“It was my fault,” James said, somewhere above her. “I made the call. I let Novokov go.”

“You wouldn’t have had to if I hadn’t screwed up,” Natasha said. She had not known that her survival had been a secondary mission priority until they had wiped him for saving her instead of destroying Novokov…

“Stop,” Steve said clearly. “Stop, both of you, you don’t get to do this. I’m alive – we’re all alive – and Novokov isn’t. I love you. I love you.”

“God,” said James; he sat down beside them, and through her tears Natasha saw his face was wet, too. She flung her hand out, blindly, searching for him, and the cool metal fingers closed around her own; then he raised her hand and kissed it.

“I love you,” she said, her hot face resting on Steve’s bicep. “I wished I didn’t, you know, in the hospital, I wished to god I didn’t care about – about anything – but I do, I love you.” She sniffed. “It’s worth it. I wouldn’t have believed that three years ago.”

Steve sighed. “I wouldn’t have either.”

Natasha sighed too. “Shame on you, Rogers,” she said softly. “You’re always honest. You promised me.”

For a moment Steve was puzzled; then he understood, and held her very close. James tilted his head, curious, but he didn’t ask, and Natasha loved him for it.

“What a mess.” She laughed at herself.

James said, “I’ve been waiting for you to start breaking crockery since the hospital.” He grinned a lopsided and slightly wobbly grin at her.

“I think I’d’ve felt better if I’d gotten to beat Novokov to death with my bare hands.” She touched his face while Steve was laughing, traced the bullet graze that cut along his cheekbone.

“Come on,” he said, and kissed her fingertips. “Let’s go to bed. Let’s just go to bed.”

They actually made it to bed this time without anyone having a nervous breakdown. James curled himself around Steve lazily, his head on Steve’s shoulder, and it was Natasha’s turn to kiss those scars, trace the angry lines of them with her fingers.

“They’ll be gone in a couple months,” Steve said, sounding adorably sleepy already.

“I think you’ve got a kink for scars,” James told Natasha.

“I think if I do it’s in self-defence,” she said ruefully, and bent to kiss his own, unhurried, enjoying the texture of his skin beneath her lips, the faint salt taste of perspiration, the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. “Can’t believe you made me take that shot.” She scraped her teeth across his nipple, punishing.

“I know you,” he said, and smiled suddenly, inappropriately boyish, given the subject matter. “I know you.”

God. Her eyes were hot and damp again; Steve’s touch didn’t help much. Mine, my darlings, and I’m keeping you. She kissed James again, the sweet curve of his mouth, the cleft in his chin. I know you too. Steve’s hand was stroking down her back, firm and warm and steady. Natasha sighed, long-drawn-out, and finally settled against Steve’s side, her head on his chest. Steve sighed when she skimmed her hand over his skin, traced a circle around his navel. She’d been lying like this with James in the garden…

“Hey,” said Steve.

“Hmm?”

“Let’s hike up a volcano.”

Natasha snorted. James started to laugh.

“What for?”

“Uh, so I can go home and tell everybody I hiked up a volcano?”

“That’s adorable,” said Natasha.

“It’s a volcano.”

“Knowing our luck it’ll erupt as soon as we set foot on it,” said James.

“D’you think lava could melt the shield?” Steve said. “I’ve always sort of wondered.”

“Molten steel might,” said Natasha.

“Molten steel,” said James. “Where did that even come from?”

“Don’t tell me you still haven’t seen _Terminator_ ,” said Steve.

“The one with the apocalyptic robots?”

“Well I know what we’re doing this evening,” said Natasha. “Hey, how hard do you think it really is to cook a soufflé? I’ve always sort of wanted to try.”

+++

When they got home again they found Sam had bought them a plant and left it on the coffee table in the living room, along with Cooper, Lila and Nate’s care package for Steve.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
